without theable to read a ruler. >> john nice to see you again. >> bill. >> thank you for taking an interest in us. appreciate it. >> that is this edition of "the factor." thanks very much for watching us. i am bill o'reilly. please always remember that the spin stops right here. we are looking out for you. >> 70 percent of the ground beef we buy at the supermarket contains something they call pink slime. >> pink slime? abc news is upset about that. for your safety this energy drink. this big drink and raw milk are illegal. >> why do you want to drink raw milk? >> because i want to. >> if you can't pick your own food are you free? >> basic food freedom should be like freedom to worship, speak

or own a gum. gun. >> does that mean i could eat her or him or him. >> oh good. >> that is our show tonight. >> john stossel. >> food can kill. people who eat the wrong stuff may get sick. that's why most everyone says we need the government to set limits make sure there's no bacteria in your food or dangerous chemicals to make sure food companies tell you what is in the food and how fattening it is. felix ortiz has done that in new york city. he got calorie counts posted at mcdonald and other fast food places. now he wants a ban on adding too much salt. so representative ortiz you think you have saved lives because of these things? >> absolutely. >> joe is a farmer he grows

vegetables also raises cows, chickens and pigs. i assume you want the people who buy your beef and pork to be safe. don't we owe him a vote of thanks for saving us? >> no actually. i would say you are killing me out here. um prying to get my food to market and this plethora of government regulations is killing our farm and the ability to come to market. >> you are a greedy businessman don't care if people die. let's see ow lives saved because of the ban on trans fat? that is old news. how about you want a tax on junk food. >> we have it built to make sure many money so that the carbohydrate products in the market. we are giving the consumer the choice to choose what they want to consume. >> good food would cost less,

sugary food would cost more. >> is orange juice and arm juice junk food? >> i don't think they are. >> they have more sugar than coke and pepsi. >> we will cross that bridge when we get there. i love my apples and like my orange. >> you also helped get these calorie counts posted at fast food places. >> that is correct. >> you go into mcdonalds you say this has this many calories. >> we have consumers making choices based on what they see. we have managed to see a wonderful number of decrease in people suffering from obesity and diabetes. >> it is decreasing? >> it is moving in that direction as mcdonalds and burger king are becoming to be more responsible. >> are real studies being done

on this? put up the label tell us what the calorie count is. nyu went into the fast food places your law went into effect and people said yeah it's great we can see the calorie count and we are paying more attention to that now. then they look at the receipt and they saw they were eating more calories. the best thing we can do is give them the choice the option. >> you wrote a book "everything i want to do is illegal." (laughter) >> what is your point. >> my point is every time the government penetrates into the food system the abuses mount up on the big guys and little guys like us get rooted back to the table due to a smothering bunch of regulations. >> the little guys it puts them out of business the big guys can

afford all of these rules? >> what absolutely. the regulations are unscaleable. they say they are wonderful when you say them but when you get them on the ground the prototypes who want to bring innovation to the marketplace have such large over head to get them are still borned because they have to be born too big. >> joel drinks milk that hasn't been pasteurized. raw milk he says because he thinks it is healthier. so today i think he and they are ridiculous. but we agree on one thing. this clip is creepy. they stopped there because they had raw milk. >> they drew guns. >> like they thought we had cocaine in the papayas. >> ripped my house apart took me

down to the county jail booked me, photographed me like a criminal. >> felix you support government protecting us like that? >> i think government interventions come as a result of when things get out of control. when you have healthcare costs -- >> it's their body. isn't he free? isn't that part of freedom he can make his own stupid choices? >> i never believe i am cutting any one's freedom. >> you support bloomberg's ban on big soft drinks? >> the big soft drink is important to recognize we need to make it smaller. you have children at the age of 9 in my own district where they suffer from hypertension as a result of too much soda and sooch sugar. people are not taking responsibility. that's when government jumps into it.

>> how can you say you are leaving them their choice, you are not. you are jumping in and taking away choices. >> they should be glad we are trying to make sure people can>> this is dangerous? >> depending how many of those you have today. >> one of these is illegal. >> i make sure people get stopped from getting these kinds of items. >> you want to ban this. >> the bloomberg rule bans a drink this size. >> well -- >> this is more than 16 ounces. >> i think that is a great idea. >> you want to ban extra salt, too. >> this is a very important item we need to discuss and talk about it. when you talk about having too much sodium on product awe are talking about a stroke, a heart attack, talking about hypertension. >> the problem is a government

can tell you you can't eat this soda or salt is the same government will tell you you have alternative treatments to cancer therapy. a government decides of course tell you that you can't make a risky decision, is a government that can deny you the right to have a healthy decision. you can't have both of them. >> you support the mayor, you support his ban on donations to homeless shelters? one man who donated for 20-years was turned away because he tried to give bagels and carrot stew because you didn't know the salt and sugar content? >> at homeless shelters you support that? >> let me make this very clear about what i support or don't support. i go to are restaurant i have my own choices. i ask the waitress can you tell the chef to make sure he is not

sa salting my items. i you make the choices. >> you don't want salt? i don't get salt. >> you are trying to ban it. >> i am going to limit the amount of salt that goes into your plate. i am sieving you life and the life of theme of this nation. >> thank you so much felix for saving my life. joel thank you for giving me more choices which i refer -- prefer. >> current leaders think it's their right to make us exercise and lose weight and more must be done to get healthy foods in b neighborhoods. the author of "the hunger fix" fatty and salty foods are drugs like cocaine and meth. he could teach medicine at the university of maryland actually believes that food is like coke and meth?

>> no, not food. just certain foods. and -- >> salty, fatty? >> no, sugary, fatty, salty foods studied by world class scientist now. i have been stosselized about this. >> what does that mean? >> i went through a stalk ficcation. i have been thinking about this, what is the role for instance government that you find out when certain people have exposure to the refined foods i am not talking about apples and oranges and tuna and the rest of the stuff. >> it is based upon credible brain scans and excellent work. the preward center. >> or any other condition. >> lights up in the brain.

>> when that happens you have the situation where you have impaired ability to make a choice that is good for you. two bottles of wine and hey why don't you do a little moderation right now because you can't you are in full on addiction. what do you do? should the government have a role in any of this? no. >> this is how you have been stosselized? >> i have been stosselized. >> absolutely. i grew up. >> i invited you on the show because you are the bad guy. you said in your book. >> i have been transformed. >> you say government needs to educate people. >> i said education. treat these foods as addictive substances. >> people need to understand that certain people are very, very susceptible to this. here's what you need to do. if you take -- let's take that bottle of fasty stuff there. say we take that right there.

all right. if you say that i can't have a 16 ounce what am i going to do if i have an issue like food addiction. i am going to score it some other way. you can charge me. you can maybe run around with 8 ountss inste ountss -- ounces instead of 16 ounces but somehow i am going to score this thing and you can't do a thing about that. >> you are against mayor bloomberg's ridiculous soda size thing. you do say make free programs available to get people to detox and get off these foods. >> i didn't say it was government. i said can we have programs. you know what the free programs are? they are already in existence. they are done by private organizations. we have over eaters anonymous. >> not government? >> no. >> they are all free. we agree about that. i told you i was stosselized. >> i am delighted. >> how about the other issue that i am told there are food

deserts we have to invite super markets in there give them tax breaks pay fo it because they can't get fresh food? >> ever since that original myth came out about the food desert we found out by doing research is that it really wasn't true at all. >> there are just as many super markets in that area. >> we are right back to where we go again. >> they can get out and do something for themselves they are the ones with the choice they need to be doing that for their families as well. >> nutritionists. >> may you all be stosselized.

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>> abc news investigation. is it what we think it is?

>> there is all of a sudden startling news investigations. cell phones will give you cancer. so will teflon pans. the scare mongering is constant. earlier this year the scare was pink slime. >> with 70 percent of the supermarket ground beef containing pink slime how are you to know what's in your beef? >> how do i know what's in my beef? is there something in there called pink slime? it sounds awful. as abc news explained to the public people are upset about that. >> parents schools state officials the government demanding someone do something about pink slime. >> they are insisting because abc news scared them to death. >> it persuaded almost all school systems to stop using that form of meat. in one month the company that made it lost 80 percent of test business. we invited the beef company to

come on this program to explain themselves but they said they can't talk about it because they sued abtc. it is outrageous this company secretly pedals this horrible thing called pink slime and they won't talk about it now that they were caught by the heros of abc except, speaking of food funk, what i just said now is utter bunk. the meat is safe. what abc called pink slime is safe. to help explain it is dan gainer of the media research center. explain. >> bunk is the polite word. abc went on a crusade. three nights in a row back in march they pounded on this. in the first three minutes of their first broadcast they said the term pink slime. >> why shouldn't they? >> because it's not pink slime it's ground beef. i have been to the factory where they manufacturer this. i am --

>> there is some in here i am going to eat it. >> a couple activists didn't like this really cool scientific process that separates the beef tripli trimmings so you get the remaining ground beef. they coined this term deliberately to hurt this company. >> the company was doing something unique it was taking the last bit of trim of meat off the bone by heating it slightly. >> that saved the money and saved the environment. >> forget just the environment get tired of hefing that argume. on abc they say you should eat leaner beef worry about your health. stuff like that. when you eat the beef it keeps that away from it, too. >> not eat 5,000 pounds a day. >> they said the term pink slime 178 times either on their

broadcast or -- >> then they started taking it back. >> they started out classic journalism. it's a term commonly used. then of course what you find is no it's not. >> they are getting used to prior to that. what's the agenda? >> agenda is always an activist pushing against me against food in general. this comes from oo movie society comes from a movie this comes from food put out by media. a lot of other activist movies. >> we are so proud of the process. amaze to go look at. they look that into this.

>> they laid off 700 american workers. >> and the economic down is far worse than that. >> in 20-years there hasn't been a single incident of anybody being hurt by what they called pink slime and what the industry calls it is lean beef trimmings. >> finely textured beef. >> no slimlier than other cuts of beef. >> the company here has received awards for how good a job they do for consumer safety. it was one constant. >> now the company is suing abc. i don't like that. we are saying we disagree and you shut up. >> no reason to slander or do things wrong. >> the reason they sued for $1.2 billion the reason they sued is because they said we told you this was factually

incorrect. what they try to do by targeting the super markets and other companies is they use the product they tried to shut them down. >> for the record if you are upset about what abc said you should know that legally there is all kinds of stuff in food that would bother you more. for example the fda says in a jar of mushrooms this size there can legally be no more than 20 maggots. there can legally be no more than 35 fruit fly eggs. in this much pasta it can have up to 450 bug parts. i am not saying any of these do but that's the law. mo these products have bug parts and others more than finely textured beef. a media organization wants to get you and they will.

>> and they did. >> thank you. i invited my old abc bosses to come on the program and respond but they didn't respond to our call. coming up, a taste test to where passing out samples of zebra and antelope meat. which tastes better? should we even eat that? if so what about horse or dog? what are the limits? that's next. [ male announcer ] this december, remember -- you can stay in and like something... or you can get out there and actually like something. the lexus december to remember sales event is on. this is the pursuit of perfection. i heard you guys can ship ground for less than the ups store. that's right. i've learned the only way to get a holiday deal is to camp out. you know we've been open all night. is this a trick to get my spot? [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. save on ground shipping at fedex office.

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♪ john: >> wheat lots of beef in america and chicken. how about horse or zebra. how come we don't eat those? are they kind of like cows? some of you shudder at the idea. it is illegal in some places like california and illinois.

and some stais not right to eat a zebra or water buffalo or a horse. how many of you are repulsed or bothered by the idea that wouldn't do our taste test here. it is just wrong. that is bunk says the chef at beaver creek ranch in texas. guests pay to hunt zebra water buffalo and they eat what they kill. they eat it after it has been cooked. they are not squeamish. >> 14 different varieties of animals pick out which animal you want to hunt for we take you out we harvest the animal bring it back and i cook it. >> of course. of course. >> it is better for you because

it is leaner. >> i have been a chef for years. beef from the grocery store verses cooking a zebra for example if you cook it on a grill there's so much more fat that comes out of a steak at a grocery store than it is if you cook a zebra steak. you have to do more to it. you have to tender rise it. >> leaner means maybe tougher. >> if you add some fat to it good fats like blackberry jam to it and coat it with that then grill it you get a whole different taste. and health conscious. >> horse, dog. >> of course. >> cat? >> i believe i have before. >> kunned stand why some people are put off by that? >> yes. of course. i do.

>> they control the lamb from the supermarket. as you saw we offer samples of it to our audience. which is better can people tell the difference? we didn't tell them this is zebra this is lamb we labeled the meat a, b and c. who liked a most and b most? c? >> who thinks a was the lamb? almost nobody. who thinks bsh was the lamb? who thinks c was the lamb? well, you are actually right. >> some of you anyway. >> c was the lamb. >> c is the weird antelope. was it good?

who liked it? all of it? >> i am not sure what the lesson in this is. but i would argue is part of being free is that it is wrong for illinois and california to say you may not eat horse which is a lean meat. it should be our choice. >> i believe strongly. i believe it is our choice. >> first those states are going bankrupt. thank you very much. next you know which foods are good for you which are bad. turns out what you think you know may not be so. [ female announcer ] a classic meatloaf recipe from stouffer's

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>> when i was a kid my mom told

me spinach is the healthiest food in the world. she thought that because it contained so much iron. but now we are told spinach is just an okay source of iron. no better than pizza or apple. spinach ire myth grew out of a mathematical calculation. the researcher moved the decimal point. he thought it should be there it turns out it was supposed to be over here. simple mistake. he thought it had ten times more iron than it did. the press reported the spinach myth and i had to eat spinach. the nutritional device we get today is better. today's nutritional advice is just as dubious. really? can't be. >> a lot of ideas got embraced since the 1970s that were based

on ray sufrpgs -- observations. the science is poor. we have been living with that ever since. in the process we have obesity epidemic diabetes increased four fold. the usda the food guy pyramid might have gotten it right why is obesity and diabetes increasing so quickly? >> you are a science journalist. you are an md you went to stanford residency at johns h hopkins yet the nutritionnal instruction you got wasn't good? >> i thought it was. i followed it myself and told everybody around me to try to follow it. about two or three years ago i was 40 pounds over weight and prediabetic exercising 3 hours a day and eating all of the right food supposedly.

it had me questioning what it was i was believing and what it was i was preaching. >> increase carbohydrates, reduce fat from 40 to 30 percent. this was based on research that led to the lathes food pyramid that told us to eat lots of breads then vegetable fruit less meat and milk now michelle obama has her new version out called my play. it is comforting to know this is all based onset elled science. the producer found this clip of the government scientist behind the rule testifying before the senate. >> i have pleaded in my report and will plead again orally here for more research on the problem before we make announcements to the american public. >> i would only argue the

senators don't have a luxury of the research scientists are waiting until every last sled of evidence is in. >> politicians as usual went off and sold us a bill of goods. >> that is one way to look at it. the head of the national acanned me of science said we are about to engage in the huge nutritional experiment you have the american public is the subject and then you have 30 years later we have gotten sicker and sicker. >> there's much more information about nutrition and not getting fat and we are fatter. >> it can be fixed with good signs. >> you have a book out called good calories bad calories. i watch tv and i know a calorie is a calorie. there's no difference. >> the reason you get fat is you take in more energy than you expend. it comes in the form of calories

it's a unit of heat. each one of the nutrients you eat protein fat the different types ch carbohydrates glue goes from starch and glue goes from if you can toes and sugar they have a different effect in your body. some are metabolized in different organs stimulate secretion of hormones that have different effects on whether or not you will store cam r cap refalt or burn them as fuel. maybe it's not the calories it's the hormonal effect on the foods. what they do to us not how much energy they bring to us. >> u.s. department of health is saying a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. are they stupid? oo just hasn't been tested. >> just hasn't been tested. >> one of the things gary and i did when we started the organization. >> this organization being? >> nutrition science initiative. we went back and looked at every

science study that attempted to answer that question. gary found about 82 studies that attempted to answer that. they were fraught with the same limitations and problems. in 2012 we don't know the answer to that question based on signs. there is anecdote tal evidence that says a calorie is not a calorie. >> one thing i know that is true you must eat less fat. yet you eat lots of fat. you are a doctor, a stanford doctor. what's that about? >> like i said about 3 or 4 years ago when i got to the point where i was too over weight to handle my own existence and my wife said i needed to be a little less not thin i realized i probably had a carbohydrate intolerance issue. all of the whole grains and things i was eating were probably leading to me becoming fatter. i realized if i strip that had stuff out of my diet and ate

more fat believe it or not all of the metabolic durangement that was unter pinning my gaining wait went away. >> you are not fat now by eating fat. >> what hap to peter it happens to a lot anecdotally. it had some kind of bizarre anecdote tal event that happened to peter who is a weird educated stanford doctor. maybe it's the nutrition advice we are getting. >> back in the 60s we used to believe carbohydrates bread, pasta rice were dpfattening. >> you have a picture of a piece of bread with butter in your book because -- >> the idea used to be the butter was considered healthy and the bread was considered featening. then the government decided it was the butter that was

fattening and the bread that should all be eating and that o coincides with obesity. >> they said margin was good for you. >> eggs were terrible. now eggs are okay. >> the reason for this flipping flopping back and forth is the research we do to try to establish it isn't capable of establishing a definitive report. >> you put a rat in the cage give it the ciao it does what it does. >> or a double blind test with people. >> with drugs it's easy take this bipill or that pill. with nutrition you send people home with a diet book john i want you to try this diet come back in a few years. we can't measure what we think we are measuring. it is probably a result of this gross incompetence.

>> thank you peter and gary. coming up did you know the coming budget cuts will kill you? you are going to die of food poisoning. that and more food bunk is next. o oh no, not a migraine now. try this... bayer? this isn't just a headache. trust me, this is new bayer migraine. [ male announcer ] it's the power of aspirin plus more in a triple action formula to relieve your tough migraines. new bayer migraine formula. [ male announcer ] lifts to clear obstacles. ♪ lowers to cut drag. rises to every challenge. the class exclusive air suspension in the new 2013 ram 1500. engineered to move heaven and earth.

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>> we are back with your comments or questions for my guests they include dr. peter atea who says lots of food advice is just bunk and dr. peak who says you can be addicted to food like people are addicted to cocaine. kent williams asks is there hard evidence to help worries against genetically modified organisms in a bunch of foods. in california had a vote. you should label them. the people voted no on that. >> don't you want to know? you are a natural food nut. >> i should be able to label it gmo free.

>> you are not allowed to label it? >> no. >> people can't know. you don't need a law another labelling law let the market decide what they want. >> what is the idea of empty calories and are they more addicting to other. >> you take something like cane sugar beat it to death process it and spit it out at a manufacturing plant. suddenly you went from some dark wonderful food that was a whole food and it is refined sugar. it has no major nutrients other than the fact that it gives you a lot of energy. >> we are eating more of this stuff all of the time. >> it is all about choice. if you want to have a little bit of that empty calorie on top of a cookie knock yourself out if it doesn't hit knew a bender and

you don't eat everything not tacked down around you. some people they do that. you have to use your common sense. you know your body better than anybody knows. >> is it very person to person or pretty much across the board? >> it is a great question. strikes me as almost impossible to believe that eerie human being on earth is going to do equally well on the exact same diet. i hope the future of medicine and nutrition is one where we can start to customize and tailor things on both people's genetic susceptibility and epi genetics all of the things that influenced you up until your point in life today. your ideal diet is in line with the pa leshg o diet? is that something you are advocating? >> i think the labels are a little bit confusing. i would say in respect to myself

was i figured out i had a significant intolerance to most of the foods i was eating. what i eat today probably looks a lot like what someone consumed in a paleoistic time. i don't add here to a certain set of rules. i will give you one example. i think a hard-core paleo person w would advocate pa dairy doesn't make sense. i found for me dairy does really well. it comes to the theme we are hearing at the individual level we have to figure out what works for us. but it is good to have science that informs that so you know you are making a reasonable starting guess as to where to go. >> there's a tiny twist to that you are a guy guy. women when they have been studied with these kinds of dietary intakes have had more trouble. women are more carbohydrate attractive. they will last several weeks or so if that long on a strict diet

very much like this which is very high fat and only takes in about 10 percent carbohydrates. women after a while bump it up a little bit. a lot of it has to do with our own blue print. we can help you customize that based on denned gender. >> on that note thank you all. coming up the truth about food safety. if the government has no interest in telling you. >> t? yeah, that's the way to do it! now we need a little bit more... [ male announcer ] at humana, we understand the value of quality time and personal attention. which is why we are proud to partner with health care professionals who understand the difference that quality time with our members can make... that's a very nice cake! ohh! [ giggles ] [ male announcer ] humana thanks the physicians,

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>> did you read your copy of food poisoning bulletin? if they spend less that you see food will be less safe. fds is a boon for marginal companies attempted to cut corners. my goodness we are going to get food poisoning. seems logical to people because before government passed food safety rules sinclair wrote about the jungle meat processing was. the midsummer sun beat down upon abomination. cattle crowded into pens whose floors stank. moist flesh and rendering bath that smelled like the craters of hell. you get the drift. it was bad.

then we got billions of dollars of government regulation. that's why food is safe today. yipee. no wonder then when republicans proposed a small cut in food inspection spending a liberal editor felt justified running the headlines hello e coli. it makes sense to people without government we would have more e coli in our food. a race to the bottom the lawyers behind that food bull ton say that because sanitation costs money, a lack of regulation creates a competitive disadvantage for companies that want to produce quality products. that makes sense but it is bunk. it is not government that keeps e coli to a minimum it is competition. tyson food purdue chicken mcdonalds so on have brands to maintain customers to lose. jack in the box lost millions after a food poisoning scandal. it makes food producers even

more careful than government requires them to be. for example our agriculture department has an army of inspectors eyeballing chickens on assembly lines. they watch each bird looking for visible signs of abnormal malties. bacteria isn't visible. food producers run much more sophisticated tests on their own. one employee has 2,000 safety inspectors than government requires to kill pathogens beef carcasses are treated in a 185 degree steam vacuum. production facilities are checked with sanitation for microbial logical testing. if anything is detected they reclean the equipment. equipment routinely is taken completely apart to be swap tested. none of that is required specifically by government. i explain more about this in my book. but the bottom line is we are mostly safe because